Waking Up in Strange Places

Indulging in the recreational highs of Korean comedy "Daytime Drinking" and the "Bad Girls of Film Noir" set.

All of their filmographies deserve an unpacking. Here, Levin’s “Two of a Kind” (1951) begins with smoky voiced slut Scott hooking bigmouth bass Edmond O’Brien into some kind of shady deal, but evolves into a crazed family suspense-drama. “Let’s see how deep the water is,” O’Brien growls at one point, and it gets deep (O’Brien must amputate a fingertip himself to qualify, and Scott shows him where by drawing the line with lipstick), but the largest obstacle are sweet-hearted millionaires (!), and Terry Moore, in a breathtaking character turn, as a nutty, jabbermouthed coed with a perverse yen for die-hard criminals.

Earl McEvoy’s “The Killer That Stalked New York” (1950) follows a grift, too, but the real plot arises when it’s discovered that diamond smuggler Evelyn Keyes is actually spreading smallpox all over the city. Fringe benefits abound, particularly on-locations scenes in the old Penn Station, Dorothy Malone vamping around inappropriately as a nurse, and Whit Bissell, actually acting, as a compromised manager of an indigent flophouse, where a lobby sign reads, “Write That Letter Now.”

Seiler’s “Women’s Prison” (1955) is the seminal (sorry) entry in its subgenre (Lupino, Moore, Audrey Totter, Jan Sterling), and his “Over-Exposed” (1956) is a classic ruined-girl-makes-good-despite-temptation saga. In the same sense, busy scriptsmith Maxwell Shane went to bat for the new U.N. in “The Glass Wall” (1953), in which Holocaust survivor Vittorio Gassman makes it to New York but is hounded by immigration for his troubles, amid a veritable sea of ethnics (“Hey, we’re Hunkies, like you!”) and Morris Engel-style location night shooting.

Fine, but don’t pass over Hugo Haas’s lovely “One Girl’s Confession” (1953), in which put-upon seaside waitress/super-blonde Moore gets fed up, steals a bundle of dirty money, hides it and happily takes the rap, waiting five years to retrieve the cash. It’s not that easy, of course, but thanks to Haas, the film is rich with unique character stuff (including Haas himself as a Russian gambling-addicted bar owner who only hires Moore after she belts him), long passages of dialogue-free spatial action, and a visual palette (DP Paul Ivano shot for Von Sternberg, Von Stroheim and Whale) that crafts single shots Cindy Sherman would’ve been proud of.

“Daytime Drinking” (Evokative Films) and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s “Bad Girls of Film Noir: Volume 1” (including “The Killer That Stalked New York,” “Two of a Kind,” “Bad for Each Other,” and “The Glass Wall”) and “Volume 2” (including “Night Editor,” “One Girl’s Confession,” “Women’s Prison” and “Over-Exposed”) are now available on DVD.

Pages: 1 2